Enthusiasms Over Something You Don't Like

"To get enthusiastic [about something you're not usually enthusiastic about], learn more about the thing you are not enthusiastic about." -David J. Scwartz

Dopamine is the chemical responsible for that "good feeling" in our bodies and we get a dose of it from many different experiences. One of which is the sense of discovery.

How much do you really know about the thing you're not enthusiastic about? Chances are, not enough. If you want to "feel good", or be enthusiastic, about the subject - learn/discover more on the subject to get some Dopamine flowing.

Can One Person Make a Difference?

Where would we be today if Martin Luther King Jr. never gave his "I have a dream" speech? Where would we be today if nobody had stood up against Hitler? If King Leonidas wouldn't of taken a stand against Persia's invading army, would we still have our form of government?
History is full of great men and women who initiated change.

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference has never tried to fall asleep with a mosquito in the room." -Christine Todd Whitman

So, can one person make a difference? Yes, absolutely - one person CAN make a difference! It takes that one person to first take a stand; to then inspire the mass to move towards something greater than themselves.

The person who thinks one person can't make a different hasn't spent enough time studying history.

*This post can also be found on Men 2.0

Don't Give Your Anger

My patience has been tested quite a bit as of let due to car troubles and I'm glad I didn't give my anger away to someone else. Your anger is your responsibility, to give it away to someone else only increases tension and won't get you anywhere.

There are other ways to let your anger out such as the creative end or through fitness. Make the world a better place by killing the anger inside of you.

What Goes In

"You will become what you think about the most; your success or failure in anything, large or small, will depend on your programming - what you accept from others, and what you say when you talk to yourself." -Shad Helmstetter, Ph. D.

It's important to filter the information that goes into our brain and to learn to control our thoughts. There are so many things out there that try to steer us in the wrong direction that it's almost impossible for us to be 100% free of stupid/misleading/negative things. Removing cable T.V. from your home is a heck of a good start.

Doing it Anyway!

If you want to get good in anything you will have do it even if you don’t feel like it. If you only do something when you feel like it, you'll never get anywhere.
It has been said that in order to be an expert in anything, one must have done it for more than 10 000 hours. I believe that a mentor is also necessary. Not only does a mentor speed up the process, a good mentor will also bring you higher than you could on your own.

It’s hard to do anything without being distracted these days. As I’m writing this, I’m receiving txt messages on my phone... You will need your undivided attention to what ever you’re doing in order to get good at it. Keep distractions away, they’ll only be wasting your time.

What do you want to get good at?

---
Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on November 14, 2011 and can be found here.

Experts Are Often Blind

"Don't be blinded by your own expertise." -Daniel R. Castro

How do you know if you're an expert? Well have you stopped learning about your industry? If yes, perhaps you consider yourself to be an expert and no longer look into honing your skills. After all, what is there left to learn?
So called "experts" are often blinded by problems that requires a new way of thinking - different than what they've acquired so far. Since they already feel like they know everything, they simply brush it off as being an unsurpassable problem when it sometime isn't.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."- Albert Einstein

Don't be an expert - be an eternal student.

Intellectual Laziness

"Many people welcome authority because they have little confidence in themselves or are intellectually lazy: to accept the word of someone else is to take the easy way of gaining comfort and assurance. [...] Such conformist tendencies in human beings create fertile soil for modern high-pressure advertising and propaganda." -Titus/Smith

How can we stay away from intellectual laziness? If you want control over your intellect, you need to feel like you're in control of your life. Otherwise, you're a slave to your way of thinking and are influence by which ever voice is the loudest.

Technician Vs Entrepreneur

"Entrepreneurs don't look for money. They look for problems that need solutions."
-Daniel R. Castro

The difference between a technician and an entrepreneur is the technician is focus on improving existing products while the entrepreneur is open to new ways to fill a need.

"Entrepreneurs are not experts at finding something new. They are experts at finding things hidden in plain sight."-Daniel R. Castro

Things You Shouldn't Say

"To be honest" or "to tell you the truth" are sentence fillers that make the listeners go "aren't you honest/truthful all the time?"

Either skip this part or switch it to "i believe..." or "this is what I think". It is what most people want to say in the first place anyway.

Dream - Struggle - Victory

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes to make them possible." -T.E. Lawrence

Dream - Struggle - Victory... I must of heard this a thousand time throughout my years of being associated with great men. I've come to realize that the struggle will come regardless if you have a dream or not. The difference is that the struggle won't be followed by a victory if there's no dream or if you work towards someone else's dream.

While a dream doesn't guarantee a victory: not having a dream guarantees no victory, of your own, is possible. You might be caught up in someone else's victory though.

Dreaming is the most important thing in life and it's also often over looked. "I don't need a dream" they say "I just go". To that I ask "but where are you going?"
Everyone has a dream but only a few actually works towards it. What is your dream?

---
Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on December 13, 2013 and can be found here.

Discipline Weighs Ounces While Regret Weighs Tonnes

“There are two types of pain you will go through in life, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tonnes.”― Jim Rohn

There's a story of this woman who told a famous pianist "I would give my life to play like you do" to which the famous pianist replied "I did". One of them was experiencing regrets while the other had learned the required discipline to become a master he what he liked to do. Which one are you?

Pride Gets In The Way

"When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotions, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity." -Dale Carnegie

Too much pride gets in the way of living a fulfilling life by limiting the decision someone makes. While we don't consciously think "will this affect my pride?" we do subconsciously think about it and stop ourselves from doing something because we believe it will affect negatively how people see us - even if we really want to do it.

Other people don't care about your pride as much as theirs and by you being silly you allow other people to be silly as well. Don't let pride be an obstacle in your life.

Leaders Are Problem Solvers

The quickest way to be a leader is to learn how to be a problem solver. Leaders also lead through example. Which means that leaders must first learn how to solve their own problem prior to solving the problems of others.

Breaking Things Down To Understand

"...Professor Tony McCaffrey of the University of Massachusetts Amherst asked his students to describe objects generically by their shape, size, and materials-rather than by their common name. For example, one of his students might describe a candle as a wax tube, and a wick as a string. The only rule was to avoid describing the object in a way that implied a particular use. Students who were able to break down common objects in to their generic piece parts showed a 67 percent increase in their problem solving skills."
-P.103 of "Hidden Solutions All Around You - Why some people can see them and some can't" book by Daniel R. Castro

In fields such as Software Quality Assurance, breaking down the software into manageable pieces allows someone to better understand and test the application. Mechanics also use such skills when working on motors.

Solutions come easier to us when we allow the mind to break things into individual pieces to have a better understanding of the complete picture.

Insanity

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Is an insane person aware that he’s insane? I don’t have to look far to see people who do the same thing over and over again expecting different result.
There are guys at the gym who's too prideful to use lightweight for their exercises and wonder why they don't get any results (it's the squeeze not the weight). In this case, pride is what makes them fit in this definition of insanity.

---
Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on July 12, 2012 and can be found here.

Facts of Life

"We cannot assume that, by gathering more and more "facts" a person necessarily gains understanding and wisdom about his life and the world in which in lives." -Harold H. Titus/Marilyn S. Smith

The school system that we have needs to be tweak to add more subjects related to life's needs. Course on relationship, finances and basic entrepreneurial understanding should be included in the curriculum to better prepare the student to tackle life.

We're Not Experts In Everything

"...each of them believed himself to be extremely wise in matters of the greatest importance because he was skillful in his own art." -Socrates

A master programmer possesses knowledge of the computer languages and may develop confidence in himself as a result. He then might think that he has knowledge in areas in which he has not. We must not think of ourselves as experts in areas which we have no experience in.

Entrepreneurs Can See

"Entrepreneurs are not experts at finding something new. They are experts at finding things hidden in plain sight." -Daniel R. Castro

I don't currently possess the eye of the entrepreneur but "Hidden Solutions All Around You - Why Some People Can See Them and Some Can't" book by Daniel R. Castro is giving me some good insight of what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

"If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." -Henry Ford

Entrepreneurs are masters at finding solutions to the needs we don't know we have. To develop that skill, we first must pay attention to the world around us to identify the problems.

Inform and Affirm - The Religious Debate are Futile

"We don't look for information to inform us. We look for information to affirm us." -Daniel R. Castro

The debate between 2 religious group (or atheist vs religion) is a futile one since both party don't try to understand each other - they try to affirm themselves. They're not looking to change their views as much as the views of the other person.

"We tend to overlook, ignore or discount real, tangible, concrete evidence when it goes against our beliefs." -Daniel R. Castro

There Are No Limits

"Belief gives birth to passion. Passion gives birth to action." -Daniel R. Castro

We set our own limitations in life. Whether we say we can't or we can, both statement are true because we make it so.

"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footsteps on the moon." -Lana Hamilton

We will never do more than we think we can. To do more, we have to become more. We have to read on a daily basis to expand our thinking and work on ourselves. The book Resolved by Orrin Woodward is a good place to start.

Start today!

---
Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on December 10, 2013 and can be found here.

Communication in Relationships

Communication is what creates or destroys the trust people have for each other. Failing to communicate with someone, due to lack of self confidence or other reason, makes a relationship with that person very unlikely until the issue is resolved.